Tolerance cannot be measured in terms of degrees of intolerance. I am essentially opposed to burning books even when they incite others to violence. But freedom is either an absolute or it is conditioned on not inciting others to violence. Anything else is rationalized bigotry.

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Monday, June 2, 2014

President Obama and Language Neutrality

I suppose it was inevitable that the election
of President Obama to the highest office in the US would remain framed by his
color.As a
candidate, Barack Obama said that Americans must “reckon with race and
with America’s
original sin, slavery”. Except
that America’s
original sin was not slavery but its mistreatment of its indigenous
native-Americans. If invisibility is a crime then Barack Obama contributed to
that crime through his omission and through his historical inaccuracy.The truth would not have made him less of a
national leader even if it meant that he had to frame the debate around justice
rather than race.

If we ignore the occasional
‘mistake,’ President Obama has barely mentioned race during either of his terms
as President. There are those activists
who decry this course of inaction as a wasted opportunity to help to ‘rebalance
the scales’.But others say that it is
sufficient that he is before thepublic
eye every single day and it is his presence as President and Commander in Chief
of the Armed forces that encourages people across America to ‘be
comfortablewith’ a different aspect of
American society and therefore his presence alone, encourages acceptance.

On those few occasions when President
Obama did mention race (such as in the case of the death of Trayvon Martin) it
caused a national controversy that brought raw feelings of prejudice back into
the foreground and reanimated a racially uncomfortable America.As a president whose skin color is not white
he has had to be better, purer, and more holy than his white colleagues. In
fact, in some respects it is just like being a Jew! Although in America, Jews
have been able to revel in the occasional notoriety of their coreligionists.African Americans have not yet arrived at
that particularly dubious point of self-acceptance in their battle for
integration.I am not going to get into
any arguments about his mixed race background because like Jews under any
fascist regime playing a percentage game and defining the Blackness or
Jewishness of a person only plays into the racists hands.

The US President may indeed be
incompetent; his foreign policy failures are legendary.I cannot recall another President whose
record of failures was as long and as ignoble.His domestic challenges seem to have been no less and yet not
significantly greater than Presidents that preceded him but instead he has
suffered one failure after another and while his opponents have been in
disarray throughout his one and a half terms of office he has failed to exploit
the Republican Party’s chaos.His
presidency has seen cuts to Social Security and Healthcare reform that
divided the nation; as a Democrat he has failed to reduce unemployment or
poverty.By many of his one time
supporters Obama is viewed as a neo-con who has inflated government secrecy
while assaulting one of the golden calves of the American self-image, civil
liberties. By those on the opposite aisle he is viewed as a socialist threat to
American values. Their constant attack on one of his few policy successes, the
establishment universal health care, has made it impossible to dispassionately
address the real budget and entitlement challenges that America has.

But this is not the problem that I am addressing
here.President Obama is the first Black
(African American) President of the United States of America. His race
may have molded his character but it did not shape his ability to form
judgments nor did it create his intellect. As President, Obama should
bejudged solely on his actions; on his
successes (and forensically) on his failures. There is a strong suspicion that the constant attacks
on his policies errors by certain members of the media are being driven by an
agenda that is, at least in part, inspired by his color. But the mainstream
media, across both print and electronic outlets have taken on board that any
criticism of the Obama presidency which mentions his color is rightly
considered both irrelevant and an act of racism

For the most part the European press and media also
do not talk of individuals in terms of their national or ethnic background
unless it is deemed pertinent to the article. When they refer to the Polish President or the
Traveler (Gypsy or Tinker) community it is always in context.This policy mirrors the mainstream media
experience with the Obama administration discussed above. But there appears to
be a clear exception. The European press does seem to have a love – hate
relationship with “its Jews” and hence, its addiction to referencing “its Jews”
with never a requirement for context.

Since it annihilated two thirds of its Jewish
population in World War 2 Europe loves its past Jewish landscape and its
gorgeous panoply of (dead) Jews.But in
the present, it rarely manages to have a good thing to say for live Jews and
does little to nothing to protect them from assault while rarely failing to
blame them for their own deaths. After all, if we only listened to our betters
and did as we were told then everything would be perhaps, ‘alright’.

To be twice as good and to receive
half of the credit for what you achieve is also very Jewish. Obama, as the
first Black American President cannot take comfort in his parallel injustice.

In Britain, the excuse from the Left
wing Guardian newspaper is that Jews cannot be trusted to act judiciously or
morally when confronted by anything relating to the State of Israel unless they
display openly their anti-Zionist credentials.(I am sure that the New York Times is broadly similar). Therefore Jews
must not be permitted to enjoy any responsibilities that may have an impact on
the relationship with Israel.It should not need emphasizing that I have never
read or heard this argument with reference to any other ethnic or religious
group because it would be racist to expound on this doctrine of bigotry under
any circumstances.But it does explain
why the President has trodden so carefully on the issue of race-relations.As a man of non-white complexion living in
the White House he faces the same prejudice.

The Left and its Muslim allies have frequently
used this racist fallacy when discussing the Rights of Jews. It is now consistently
used against Jews and any Pro-Israel supporters in the struggle against BDS
(Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions).An
African American president may enjoy
immunity from such prejudiced reporting but fear of igniting a negative
reaction appears to have prevented him from attracting attention to any issues
of race that continue to blight the nation.

Unfortunately we are indebted to our
televisions (and today, other electronic communications devices) for much of
the sub-conscious programming we receive.It is responsible for a great deal of what we now think.We should not be grateful.Perhaps it is because I am sensitive to this
subtle incitement to prejudice that I also recognize the wrong we commit when
we label the first African American President by his color.It isn’t political pride, it is subtle
indoctrination. Labeling creates
associations and too often, an emotional response.

The cliché that we should judge people on their
results and not on their skin color is only possible if we commit ourselves to
language that is neutral.Neutrality of
language means a duller society.Comedians, Jew and African American alike, exploit their own group
foibles in their acts but they also reinforce the greater society’s prejudices.
‘In’ jokes inevitably demean someone or some group. So we are as guilty as the
bigots for reinforcing negative stereotypes precisely because we do not take
them seriously.

A degree of nihilism has entered into language
and as a result we have lost that self-control that encouraged us to consider
our actions first.Think about rappers, their
treatment of violence and demeaning of women.Language informs us, it molds our attitudes and imprints our thoughts
about how we relate to others.

Neutrality of language may make society duller but
it also constrains society and the hurtful instinct that fear and weakness
inspires. We need to recognize this fact. Perhaps then we will truly judge
others by their achievements rather than by their physical characteristics.Only then will we as a society reject the
bigot.